Complete newbie question re Knoppix

[MattS]

Hi,

First of all, let me make it clear that I know very little about Linux at all. That said, I work for a small company that resells a mobile data sychronisation package that is built on Fedora. The problem is that whenever a client wants an evaluation package, we have to send out a fully configured PC which as you can probably understand, is a bit expensive!

Having read up on Knoppix, I was wondering if you experts out there can help me out. There might even be some money in it for someone......

Basically I was wanting to know whether it would be possible to build a self-booting, Knoppix CD/DVD that could either run our application from the CD or alternatively automatically install knoppix and our app on a PC and have it scripted so it requires very little user input to get it up and working. Kind of like CheckPoints 'black CD' that you can simply throw into any old PC and it'll automatically turn it into a firewall.

Our current app is Java based and sits on JBOSS running on Fedora. It reads email from either a Microsoft Exchange server or Lotus Notes system and then pushes it out to mobile phones, kind of like Blackberry but ours works with mobile phones. It also accesses an LDAP or Active Directory server for user security credentials and stores phone and user configuration information in a MySQL database on the Linux machine.

I realise that due to the need to store variable information locally, this may not be an ideal scenario for a self-contained, bootable CD (but it would be fantastic if it could be accomplished). If this is the case, then the alternative is for a CD to be created that can automatically install a Linux OS and our application with the minimal of user input. I guess this will require quite a bit of scripting, buy hey, thats why I'm writing this to you experts!

If anyone out there is willing to help me, there could be some money involved, depending on how complex this is going to be. If you think you can help me, I can forward our current customer installation/configuration document which outlines everything that is needed to get our app up and working on a normal Fedora build. I can even make the binaries of our app available IF someone tells me that this is possible.

I would really appreciate any assistance possible.

Thanks.
Matt.

[fingers99]

Matt, I think this is both possible and rather important (more Kudos for Knoppix!): unfortunately I've not got the time to do it, but can I suggest that you post it under Customising & Remastering where people with the knowledge and time are most likely to see it? (What's this, a Moderator suggesting a double post?).

You may have seen this in Slashdot.

[MattS]

Thanks for the quick response. I'll cross-post (dare I !!) over to the other forum